Sports betting bill passes third reading in Ottawa, headed to Senate

Joe Comartin’s bill to legalize single-event sports betting passed its third reading in the House of Commons in Ottawa Friday and is now headed to the Senate for debate.

“It was basically done in 20 minutes,” said Ian McMahon, Comartin’s legislative assistant. McMahon said one member of parliament from the Conservative and the Liberal parties also spoke to the bill.

The bill proposes to amend the Criminal Code to make it lawful for any provincial government to operate a lottery involving single sporting events.

The code allows for multiple-game sports wagering but prohibits betting on the outcome of a single sporting event.

McMahon said Comartin is confident the bill will receive royal assent in the Senate, adding that Senator Bob Runciman (a Conservative) is sponsoring it.

“Mr. Comartin has crossed all the t’s and dotted the i’s with his Senate colleagues and we have full confidence it will pass,” McMahon said, adding that Comartin said he expects the Senate will vote on the bill by early summer.

Comartin has said in the past that aside from making gaming more competitive, the bill will also help crack down on illegal sports betting, a multi-billion dollar industry in Canada.

If the bill receives royal assent, it will be up to each province to add single-event sports betting to its gaming roster.

“With single (event) sports betting, it could bring anywhere between 100 and 200 jobs (to Windsor),” said David Cassidy, treasurer of CAW Local 444, which represents casino workers in Windsor.

With new casinos opening up nearby in Ohio in early summer, it is very difficult to tell what the gaming business will look like in Windsor, Cassidy said, so if single-event sports betting is legally allowed, the casino here would have a competitive advantage.

The state of Nevada is the only place in the U.S. where people can bet on single sporting events.

However, Cassidy said, the union is concerned that the bill’s timing – if it does pass – will mean it could take months before Caesars offers the new betting option.

Jhoan Baluyot-Lucier, a spokeswoman for Caesars, said that it is too early for the casino to start planning to phase in single-event sports betting. The casino will take its direction from the province if the bill does pass, she said.

“It’s a bill that we’ve supported from the very beginning,” Baluyot-Lucier said, adding that with the concentration of Detroit team sports fans in this area, single-event sports betting will attract a “new kind of customer” to the casino.

Just what shape single-event sports betting could take depends on each province’s gaming authority.

Paul Burns, vice president of the Canadian Gaming Association, said that it could be in the form of a traditional sports book in a casino – which requires individuals to show up and place a bet in person – or it could be offered on the Internet if a province offers online gaming, such as British Columbia.

“I would suspect it’s going to start at the border,” Burns said, referring to Windsor’s position right next to the U.S.

Canadians spend about $4 billion betting on single sporting events on the internet via offshore gambling sites, Burns said, and just $500 million on the provincially-run sports lotteries.

Winnipeg MP Kevin Lamoureux (Liberal – Winnipeg North), who spoke on the bill in the House of Commons on Friday, said that while he does not dispute that the bill would help make the gaming industry more competitive, the federal govenrment must keep in mind that the provinces are still responsible for the negative social effects of gambling, as well as the positive ones.

The provinces have to make sure they have the resources in place to handle the negative side of gaming, where addiction can lead to bankruptcies, broken families and even suicide, he said.

“We kind of overshadow it because of all the revenue (gaming) generates,” said Lamoureux, who was a member of provincial parliament in Manitoba in the early 1990s when the province began regulating gambling.

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